


Breaking The Fall

by Immortalnite



Series: Voltron Tumblr Prompts [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hugs, Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt Friendship, Pre Season 3, kinda sheith if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 06:58:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11754489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immortalnite/pseuds/Immortalnite
Summary: Keith's isolating himself, and the whole team is falling to pieces without Shiro.~*~I did a thing on tumblr where I asked people to send me Voltron prompts soooWriting prompt: Pidge realising keith is touch starved





	Breaking The Fall

The first clue was team movie nights. Keith, usually claiming the couch with Shiro against one side and Lance leaning against their legs, sat apart. Pidge had sat down first, next to Keith's usual spot, but he'd simply moved himself to another section of the couch entirely. When Allura sat down on the couch halfway through the movie, he'd just gotten up and left entirely. Pidge had been concerned, they all had been, but she put it down to the loss of Shiro still being too fresh and let it go. It wasn't fair to expect Keith to be alright after all they'd been through together to have him disappear like that. So while it worried her, Pidge let it go.

The second clue came in the form of the terribly familiar sound of fighting in the middle of the night. Pidge, on a late night snack run while she finished coding a program to more effectively translate Altean movies to English, had passed by the training deck and nearly froze at the sounds of metal on metal. Shiro, training his nightmares away? For an instant, she had even convinced herself that she was hallucinating the sounds, but after a few seconds she placed her hand to the panel and the door to the observation room slid open. It wasn't Shiro, she knew it wouldn't be him, but her heart still clenched for so many reasons when she recognised the glowing purple and black of Keith's luxite blade. She though about stopping him, but in the end she simply left the observation room.

The third clue should have been how he acted when they went on their diplomatic missions. Keith had never been much of a socialite, but he'd been able to summon a polite face and deal. Now? Pidge wasn't sure Keith even tried. Pleasentries were exchanged successfully, if stiffly, but as soon as someone tried to make conversation with Keith it all fell apart. He'd answer in one word responses or short phrases, noncommital grunts and shrugs. After one particularly disappointing exchange, Allura had blown up at Keith for not trying hard enough. Needless to say, it had not gone well. Pidge and the others could only watch as Allura's shouts were met with silence and tension from Keith until he finally exploded, screaming that they'd all forgotten Shiro in favour of useless peace talks and storming off. They didn't see Keith again until two days later when he showed up red-eyed from crying to breakfast.

But Pidge some how didn't put all of the clues together until the last one. The final piece was how Keith acted when they had a group hug. It was after one of the most successful missions they'd had since Shiro vanished and it had been Hunk who'd first pulled a grinning Coran and Pidge in, joined by Lance and Allura. But not Keith. Keith had looked on, smiled a bitter smile, and left the room. Pidge had watched him go before it hit her: Keith was simply touch-starved. But he was gone as soon as she thought it, the idea just a second too late.

It made sense, really. Keith had always been the slowest to trust and hungry for attention. Shiro's casual, thoughtless affection was something Keith craved. Shiro was probably the only one in the universe who could get away with ruffling Keith's hair and asking him what was wrong with out getting a sarcastic comment or being brushed off. It was like Keith was hooked on a drug, Pidge mused, and someone had taken that drug away.

That night, Pidge found herself in front of Keith's door, wracked with uncertainty. If she pushed too hard, he'd run. If se didn't push hard enough, nothing would happen. She knocked.

Keith's door slid open after a few seconds, a frown already on his face. The frown lessed when he was it was her.

"Pidge?"

She took a deep breath. "Can I come in? I need to talk."

There was a beat where she thought he might say no, but then he was turning aside and leting her in. They took a seat on his bed and Pidge looked down at her knees.

"What's up?" Keith was sitting too far away, further than he did before. She didn't know if he was even aware of it. Actually, she didn't know if he was aware of how much he'd been isolating himself at all.

And with that thought, Pidge broke the distance between them and hugged Keith. She could feel him go still in surprise, but he didn't push her away.

"I just need this." She muttered into his chest. Arms went around her back and she felt his chin on the top of her head.

They stayed like that for minutes on end, neither of them moving away or letting go.

"Me too." Keith drew in a shaking breath and Pidge realised he was crying. "I'm sorry, I know I haven't been the leader everyone needs me to be."

"It's okay. We know how much you miss him." Pidge moved her chin up to rest on his shoulder. "I know how much you miss him."

"I can't help it. It's just like Kerberos again, he's gone and all I want to do is run away and hide. I don't know what to do with him gone, he's the only family I've got." Keith was rambling now. "I know you guys are my family too, but he's more than that for me. You guys all talk about wanting to go home, go back to earth and families and beaches, but I don't have that, all I have is him. I don't even know if he's alive."

"He is. You'd feel it through Black if he wasn't. We'll find him, Keith."

He didn't respond to that for a long while.

"Hey, Pidge?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stay with me tonight? Can we just cuddle?"

Pidge smiled and squeezed his shoulders before she let go. "Yeah. I'm gonna go get my tablet so we can watch some terribly translated Altean movies."

"Sounds good." Keith's eyes were still red but he was smiling and the line of his shoulders was softer, more relaxed. "Thank you."

"Of course."

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short little thing with some angst and Pidge trying to help  
> If you wanna request anything my tumblr is [here](moonlightinwater.tumblr.com)


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